Friends Girls' School, Tokyo letter

The American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) was set up in June, 1917, as an outgrowth of and coordination point for the anti-war and relief activities of various bodies of the Religious Society of Friends in the United States. A co-winner of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1947, the AFSC continues to work to relieve human suffering and to find new approaches to world peace and non-violent social change.

At the suggestion of Nitobe Inazo and Uchimura Kanzo, who were studying in the United States at the time, the Women's Mission Board of Philadelphia Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) decided to establish a school for girls in Japan. Friends Girls' School was then founded in 1887, with six teachers and three students. A year later, the school was moved to its present location on Hijirizaka in Mita, Minato-ku. A fire in 1902 and the firebombings of Tokyo in the spring of 1945 destroyed the buildings, but the school was repeatedly rebuilt through the devotion of teachers, students, and graduates, and with the help of Japanese and American Quakers.